Git. Checking out a remote branch

Seems fairly simple!

git checkout -t origin/*branchname*

This stumped me this morning, since our switch to github, and our change to branching only off development instead of master.


SUCH FUN!

Julia Child's French Onion Soup

After much drooling at photos of French Onion Soup, I decided to give it a try myself.  I stuck fairly closely to Julia Child's recipe, only really changing the fact I didn't add herbs, as I wanted it to taste like onions rather than those herbs.

In the end it turned out very good! I have decided if I make it in the future, I will do a LOT more onions, as doing just 4 onions turned into two bowls of soup, and if you're going to spend so much time cooking, then you might as well have some leftovers!

On top I put two slices from a baguette, and grated parmesan cheese.

French Onion Soup ready to be devoured.

The recipe briefly:
- cut up 4 onions (I used my handy dandy Kyocera vegetable slicer for this, makes nice even slices)
- caramelize for 45mins to an hour (took me about an hour and a half, as I went really really slowly!)
- add beef broth and simmer for an hour
- put in over proof bowls, add bread slices to top, add grated cheese and broil until melted and brown
- eat.

Cisco VPNC Fedora 22 woes

Moving to our new server setup using a Cisco ASA 5500 was great, up until I realized the instructions for connecting that I was given was for Windows.

A couple months ago I made the switch to Fedora 22, and have loved every moment of the switch. Well, almost every moment, except for the bit where some stuff just doesn't seem to work like it's supposed to, and you can find dozens of posts online where people have the exact same problem, none of which ever seem to have found resolution.

My first mistake: Trying to adapt the Windows instructions for use in Fedora. Why was this a mistake? Simply because the software suggested, while it runs in Fedora, turned out to be the really long way around.
Shrew Soft just wouldn't connect. It timed out, and didn't give me any indication as to why. I ended up turning on debugging in the conf, restarting, trying again, saving the debug. Still made little to no sense to me (have you ever seen those logs?!).

I tried installing and configuring like this: https://www.moucha.cc/charon/l2tpipsec-vpn-client-on-fedora/
No luck, never got past: ipsec auto --add VPN_CONNECTION_NAME

After that I tried a couple manual setups of ipsec and openswan, and felt like I was getting somewhere, but as I know next to nothing about VPN, it was all very confusing.

Finally, I ran: dnf search NetworkManager
Found this guy: NetworkManager-vpnc
Dnf installed that.
Opened Network in gnome.
Clicked the little + in the bottom left corner, chose vpn, then Cisco Compatible VPN (vpnc)

 --> The stuff in () after each described where that is in Shrew Soft, if you have those instructions like I did.
Entered the Gateway (host name or IP address of remote host)
User name and pwd (in shrew soft entered after you try to connect)
Added Group name (Authentication->Local Identity->Key ID String)
Group password (Authentication->Credentials->Pre Shared Key)

In Advanced, I checked the box for "Disable Dead Peer Detection", clicked Apply.
Finally clicked "Add", then switched it on!

A wasted few hours of trying to figure it out, and it was basically already there.

Hope this saves some poor soul some time.

How to figure out what a variable really is?

Wow it's been a while since I posted on this blog! I came across a stupid error today (the error wasn't stupid, I was...) where I needed to use an object in a function, but for some reason, PHP didn't think it was an object.

Eventually I used: gettype, then get_class, even tried a little is_object.  Of course all of them returned that it was indeed an object, it was the class I thought it was, and yes.. no really.. it's an object.  No matter what I tried however, any get call failed.
Turned out I was using said function in a couple places, and RIGHT BEFORE I needed it, I was setting that var to an array, then back to an object. It was failing on the array call, and not even in the place I thought it was failing.

Welp.. now I know to scroll back and read the ENTIRE log instead of tailing the last few lines.

Treadmill

I own one.

Fascinating right? Every morning I'd make the trek (short walk) to the exercise room at my apartment complex, and about half the time, someone would be using MY treadmill. Irritating right? I'll take just about any excuse not to exercise, so I was basically skipping half my workouts.

I bought a treadmill.

Anyone that's been in my apartment knows, there is literally no space for a treadmill. I made space. It does fold down to quite flat, and I can put it under the bed (not easy nor convenient but still possible) if I really have to (please don't come over so I have to). I can't be any place in my apartment (except my bed!) without having to look at it. Good news! Every day since I've had it, I've walked/jogged on it for an hour or more. I tried to play "Red Dead Redemption" while walking, but that proved more difficult than I had anticipated (can't aim).

How long will this last? Hopefully until I break it from overuse :D

BFN

Forgetting my tar gzip for no reason

I just can't seem to retain the usual tar gzip commands I use.. SO here is my blog entry that is also a cheat sheet for commands I use often, but still can't seem to remember.

Tar Gzip Create: tar -czvf filename.tar.gz folder/
Tar Gzip Expand: tar -xzvf filename.tar.gz

Grant for Mysql;
GRANT <permissions ALL, SELECT> on DB.Table(*) to user@<ip or like '10.%'> identified by 'pwd';

Copy, preserving permissions, verbosely, recursively, forcing:
cp -pvfr files where

If I think of more (as I google them because I've forgotten them again) I'll edit my own post.. since this post is all for me anyhow :D

Deleting a block in VI:

First line: ma
Last line: :'a,.d


BFN

UFO's and other Sewing projects

It's been SO long since I've spent some decent time sewing, so I've decided to dedicate tomorrow, and perhaps even Saturday and Sunday to getting some UFO's out of the way, as well as playing with some awesome new patterns and fabric I've acquired recently.

I ended buying a ton more fabric recently when it was on sale from fabric.com for $1/yard. Now I'm going to sit down and make at least one skirt with the 20 or so yards of different fabric I bought. I know.. that's a lot of fabric, so I'm self banned from buying new clothes until I make (and finish) at least two pieces.

I was thinking of making a pencil skirt from a pattern I recently bought. Last night I sat down to cut out the pattern and realised I'd bought a pattern one size too small. :( I could scale it, but I think instead I'm going to use the sloper I made in pattern making class a while back. That's what it's for after all!!

Today I just need to make sure I gather together all the notions, so tomorrow.. I'll be ready finally.

I miss boot camp terribly, but I don't think I'll be able to go back at all. The cost is just too prohibitive.

I've had a tough time getting up early ever since the time changed to daylight savings. This morning I had Lou literally PUSH me out of bed when he got up to leave for work, and I managed to get my jog in before he had left. Now if only he was there 5 days a week to give me a shove.

BFN